05/08/2014

It's summer movie season, which means lots of effects-heavy, big budget romps. And it's easy to feel numbed by all this digital overkill. But when visual effects are used well, they can tell the story instead of distracting from it. Just check out our list of 12 movies that use VFX purely as a storytelling tool.

05/07/2014

In recent years, people have been buying more and more vinyl records—and now, demand for music etched into this aging format is so hot that the country's largest plant is increasing its capacity by more than 50 percent.

05/04/2014

When 24-year-old Brooklyn resident Will Paybarah was stopped by police for running a red light on his bike on March 20, he was expecting a ticket or possibly just a warning—until he took out his phone. "When I tried to record my interaction with the officer I was arrested... in 10 seconds flat," he tells Gothamist.

05/03/2014

Cinco de Mayo is a gringo holiday anyway, so I'm not going to judge you if you choose to celebrate with a frozen margarita and a plate of cheesy nachos. But I am here to tell you that you can do better—much, much better. Here's how to drink Mexican in style.

05/01/2014

Verizon isn't taking too kindly to proposed regulations on an upcoming spectrum auction, and is hoping the FCC will change its ways before the sale opens next year. The auction, which will have extremely valuable 600MHz spectrum up for grabs in mid-2015, is expected to have restrictions imposed on it to limit big players like Verizon and AT&T from taking it all for themselves.

The FCC is proposing that the auction have rules that will limit any one company from picking up more than a third of the spectrum available in any given market. The goal is to open up the doors for smaller players like T-Mobile, Sprint and regional carriers to pick up the much-needed low-band spectrum, which is usually unobtainable because of the high bids larger carriers can put in.

Verizon has spoke to members of the FCC this week to express its displeasure with the potential rules, saying that it's putting unfair restrictions on larger carriers, even though the likes of Sprint and T-Mobile have the means to place large bids for spectrum:

"T-Mobile and Sprint are large corporations with established, well-financed corporate parents. They and their parent corporations are more than capable of paying substantial amounts to acquire spectrum in the incentive auction if they choose to do so."

Verizon claims that Sprint and T-Mobile, owned by SoftBank and Deutsche Telekom, respectively, could easily pay what Verizon and AT&T have for these airwaves. Though the FCC's goal is to distribute some of the low-band spectrum to smaller carriers, it also has to consider the fact that it needs to raise at least $7 billion in the auction to pay the broadcast companies that are giving up the spectrum. An auction without Verizon or AT&T may drastically limit the amount of money raised by the auction, even though it is putting up 30MHz of spectrum for grabs.

04/30/2014

Starting May 1st the AIGA National Design Center in New York City is hosting Century: 100 Years of Type in Design– an exhibition showing the range and progression typography has gone through in recent history.

04/27/2014

When you let bugs run wild inside a shed for years, you never know what you're gonna get. Like this hornet's nest that fused together with a wooden statue to look like a sand creature swallowing a trapped human head. It's haunting.

04/25/2014

As part of the inaugural Global Space Balloon Challenge, a group of Stanford students took this photo from just above the Earth using two high altitude balloons. With one of them perched slightly above the other, you can see the balloon braving the flight as the other captures this breathtaking view over California. [cnet]

04/23/2014

You ever have that dream where your highschool football coach comes out on the field for a prep rally, looks you dead in the eye, and starts singing a dream pop melody from Baltimore-based indie rock duo Beach House—except he's actually Ray Wise, star of Twin Peaks and Robocop? You will tonight.